Read it. And Weep.

Hey you! Yeah YOU. Over there, spying my blog when you're supposed to be working. What is it that you want from me? Embarrassing stories? Righteous polemic? Pictures of shirtless dudes? What? WHAT?

I got nothing. The well's dried up. Blogtacularity has gone the way of blog mediocrity. I just watched "Adaptation," which is a really great movie. Also saw Bourne Supremacy. And as brutally hot as Matt Damon is...
+++
Here I was looking for a Matt Damon picture on IMDB to supplement my story, when I see that he's in post production on a movie called "Imperial Life in the Emerald City." I am aghast. That's a book written by Washington Post reporter/former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran about first years after the United States invaded Iraq. So I'm asking myself, "How do you make that shit into a movie with Matt Damon?"

Here's how. I haven't read the book, but the CPA and reconstruction in Iraq sounds like a Monty Python script. For those of you the least bit inclined, read the interview. Starts a couple paragraphs down.

Photo op

Indian national security advisor M.K. Narayanan (right) meeting Vice President Dick Cheney on July 19, 2007

(Cheney: I am going to mirror his body language and look straight into his thick glasses to show him we are together, allies in the fight against terror.)

(Narayanan: Is he giving me the finger?)

Speaking of healthcare

This, from my Seattle-native friend.

"Precautionary Principle"

My titles are starting to sound an awful lot like like one-hour legal dramas on T.V. But stick with me because this morning I bring you a brief discussion of God, a tale of innocence, innocence lost, heartbreak and much, much blathering. Let's get started.

By Porcupine Porcupanimosity
Staff Writer
It was some time in elementary school circa 1984? when I began hearing lots of talk on the nightly news about atheists and believers, about prayer in schools and about using the word God in the Pledge of Allegiance. I began learning about the messy laws that bind and tear apart the religious and the secular and why it was such an emotional issue. Heady times. I wore leg warmers. Ronald Reagan puttered around the White House.
With this in mind, my brother, on break from college and no doubt a Philosophy 101 class, quizzed me and a friend -- who was sleeping over-- all about God.
"Why do you believe?" he asked.
"Why not!" we answered in unison as if it was obvious. Why wouldn't you believe if it got you into heaven? Or led to all manner of good things? Seems silly to mess with what we don't know. Even now, this seems a sensible approach.
That night I think we danced and sang to "What A Feelin'" by Irene Cara about 20 times and didn't concern ourselves again with my brother's question. Pragmatism had driven our faith. We just decided to believe, and moved on with our slumber party.

Little did I recognize the philosophical heft of our stand, courtesy of a mathemetician who didn't believe in playing the odds. It remains unclear to me whether deciding to believe in God means that we actually do believe in Him. Let's just hope that either way God doesn't welch.
For me and many others, that youthful pragmatism has been eroded by one devastating reality after another: that the world is host to random catastrophe, poverty, violence, selfishness, meanness and unbearable amounts of sadness. It also has lots of good things, but there's no point in trying to counterbalance. It can't be done without exquisite lying.
So though I am on record to whomever is taking notes that I am still a believer, details of that belief remain vague.
For now, the closest thing to surety I have about life is that in death we all turn back into the earth or cosmic dust or whatever it is and it starts all over again. Whether souls or consciousnesses or essence or other etherea is saved for a special date and time TBA, I can only hope. Or wager.
In the meantime, let me say this: I don't disrespect religion or the religious, though I am more than happy to disrespect all manner of individuals who represent all kindsa suck. (A distinction I make, unlike degraded blowhards who have lost all touch with reality.)
But I do find discussions of "working on" or "practicing" or "strengthening" faith to be troubling. Faith isn't something to be worked on, in my opinion. In reporter academy, ideally, we don't pick our favorite conclusion, find ways to support it, and call it "faith."
We call it bad journalism.

Hubris is...

...flouting calls by the public for what is public information.
...shamelessly defending the company you keep while hunting ducks.
...providing undeserved mercy to people close to people close to you.
...acting defiant as a weary, indignant nation watches, adding yet more nuance to your murderous legacy.

But hubris is a mild word when referring to leaders and despots, so perhaps it's better described, though harder to recognize, closer to home. Until, that is, a hot, sunny day when you log on to your student loan web site and reality takes it's gloves off.

Then, hubris becomes...

...quitting your job happily with three student loans and personal debt exceeding the GDP of a handful of underdeveloped nations.
..too-late remembering, thanks to your textbook case of ADHD, that your balances after 10 years of regular payments exceed the original amount.
...swallowing all that information quietly, and choking on it.

Silhouettes compared

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/

Why I quit

Many reasons. Here's one reason, captured beautifully by Cary Tennis of Salon.

"I also found that work was really tiring, and that people after work did not have the energy to work on their projects. This too shocked me. Whatever art or writing or sports they might be doing, they let these things go, because they were tired. So I saw a nation of people whose energies were being wasted.
This sounds sillier and more naive all the time. And yet it was my experience.
So I thought, not me, that will not happen to me. I will work but I will not allow it to tire me out. I will write, and make music and live my life, even though I am working in an authoritarian organization in the daytime.
But I did not have the strength and endurance to do so. I lost the battle. I took refuge in addiction, so shameful was my failure to be an artist in America and also a worker in America."

Scooter Liberation

Get thee to a punnery, Porcupine!

So I know this constitutes news-to-drool-over for Washington insiders and politicos, but President George W. Bush granting clemency to the man convicted of lying about the Valerie Plame CIA leak was greeted with a decided yawn and Vhatever, by my mother when I told her about it, all excited. Her eyes glazed over. I might as well have been talking about granting clementines to the man convicted of lima beans.
A

"pls be sure to get this jousting event in the calendar in July"

A little taste of what I'll be leaving behind.

The right to revolution

Seymour Hersh consistently gives us history-changing, criminal-naming stories, amazingly well-sourced and revelatory. But his writing -- and subject material -- is so damn hard to follow.
Please, New Yorker editors, help the readers out with timelines. And perhaps pictures of the major characters with telling captions. The idea is to disseminate this information to as wide an audience as possible, right?

Speaking of dissemination: A reminder of the not-half-bad DOI:
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it..."

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Kitty Not Happy

Nice.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2007/06/14/kitty_not_happy/

Well, hellooo there

On the elevator today, I dropped my sunglasses right on the elevator track as the doors were closing. I stared, immobile and unresponsive as they were about to be crushed. My co-passenger, a fine young gentleman in a suit, kicked up his foot and used his Italian shoes to stop the doors and save my $12 CVS purchase that often makes me look way hotter than I really am. I was so happy.
"This is the most exciting thing that is going to happen to me all day," I said, happily.
He laughed, a little, then paused. "Oh. That's depressing."

In other news, there are several great things to note:
On Saturday, Ridonkucris and Mermaid tied the knot. It was great fun, the weather was amazing, the friends I talked, danced and laughed with all made me remember that life is amazing, especially when you have people around you who aren't fucking ass holes. Plus, I got a free CD and a bottle of wine out of the deal. There was much laughter and even some tears. A shout out to the happy couple now honeymooning on the ocean. Will they blog while on their honeymoon? I think not. And yet, and yet, I double-dog-triple-dare them.

Now, as life settles back into the glacially slow and unhappy work routine, I will try to spend more time on this blog, sharing stories, postulations, rants, hypotheses, analysis and more on this, that and whatnot.

Thank you and goodnight.

P.S. Sean worried that he was responsible for my extended blog silence. Let's all remember that Porcupine can never be silenced by anyone! Except the vastness of her own paralyzing self doubt, so there!

Porcupine Index

Number white dudes at the Whole Foods who have spontaneously spoken to Porcupine in Hindi: 3
Number of collective piercings on those white dudes: at least six
Number of those white dudes who claim an Eastern religion: 3
Percent chance "Aaron" at the check out counter knows more about the Bhagavad Gita than Porcupine: 100
Number of times Aaron looked at Porcupine askance when she didn't recognize a Sanskrit word for "vegetarian": 2
Chances three white dudes, particularly "Aaron," exotify the East: 100
Number of times Porcupine was infuriated by the phenomenon known as flirtation-by-way-of cultural and religious appropriation: 0

"Buying the War"

Riveting start to finish. Knight Ridder's reporters as protagonists; Dick Cheney, leaking a story to the New York Times and then quoting from that story on a morning talk show (wow, liberals and conservatives agreeing - it must be true), Dan Rather holding David Letterman's hand and relinquishing skepticism entirely and that dick Tim Russert being a dick, as usual; invocation of mushroom clouds.

Four hours of Wikipedia

I have read Wikipedia for most of the day, today. I am addicted. I know the origins of flotsam and jetsam, what feudalism means (it's disputed!) what Indian Jats and Indo-Scythians are and, forgive me, details about teen heartthrob Adam Brody.
Remember in "Buffy" when Tara gets shot and Willow loses her mind seeking revenge, goes to the magic shop and puts her hand on a pile of dark magic books and you literally see the words go crawling up her arms and into her head... and her hair turns black?
My hair's black. But not in the evil way.

The Struggle

Tonight, in desperate need of a chat, I talked to my brother who is one of the nicer, gentler, kinder people in the universe, and he made me laugh a nice solid laugh about something I should laugh about more: Our upbringing, which was loosely based on the laws of the jungle.
So he's complaining because mom and I are going away this Saturday. This cuts into his plans for mom to make his favorite food on Saturday.
I suggest he ask her to make it on Friday so he can eat it later. He recoils at the idea. My mom always gives him a hard time about food requests, he alleges, and that hard time is only worth it if the food is fresh off the stove. (Aloo parathas for those in the know.)
"Mom never gives me a hard time when I ask for something," I say, not tauntingly, but curious-like.
"Yeah, I know. She hides food for you. Do we really want to open this pandora's box?"
Yes, yes I do.
"There's an underclass in this family," he says, "and I am it."
I'd heard this from him before, but never in terms of class struggle. It makes me laugh.
"At some point I hit a glass ceiling," he explains. "I think it was when I was born."
I laugh, hysterically. A corporate struggle.
"I'm glad you think this is funny."
I laugh again. He laughs a little, too.

My pants are on fire

I was trying to craft a response to an email I received from a coworker today, and I was weighing the best way to respond to it, when all of a sudden I felt this wave of nostalgia for my childhood. If you've ever heard about my childhood (think Dark Lord Sauron And His Family) you'll know this doesn't happen very often. I was nostalgic for the days when I spoke freely, bluntly, without too much pause or hesitation. When I could frown openly when I didn't like something, or gush crazily when I loved something.
It was no doubt tactless at times. But at least it was honest.

I didn't outgrow this honesty until after college. Still have some relapses, but you can safely say that the first amendment is not protected with vigor when I talk. Not that I lie. I rarely do that. But that's different than being totally honest.
I feel like some people pretend tact and sensitivity is better, somehow morally superior to plain old honesty. It's not. That's one of these lies someone with overblown etiquette righteousness (a miserable fucking thing, etiquette.) tries to pawn off on everybody. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about tender honesty. I'm all about trying to be considerate and treating people with respect. The Golden Rule. All that shit. But that respect has warped into the worst kind of double talk and subterfuge. I'll have to come up with examples because I'm being all abstract again which means NOBODY is going to fucking comment on this post.
What I am saying is that speaking honestly is something I see rarely. (And ranty blowhards like meself don't count.)
It's just sad. Given ALL the ways to communicate, we've become completely inept at doing it honestly with each other. It's also, coincidentally, a way of excluding others, of wielding power, a way of keeping power. Alleged uranium enrichment in Niger comes to mind. But other more banal scenarios come to mind, too: buying a house in a nice neighborhood or getting a promotion.
I gotta go write this email.

A little lost

Best new character: Juliet. Best episode in a long time. Jack is such a doooooofus.

My mediocre Orioles

Nice little argument by a fellow O's fan.

News story: Britain and Iran

Pretty decent essay about the British navy and Iran by a guy whose last name is Wheatcroft. There is much to say about that whole thing, mostly about British prime ministers who are bad liars.
In other news, the hair situation remains. And I can't figure out the digital camera-computer mindmeld.

Shaggy from Scooby Doo

is having a better hair day than I am. Bales of hay and uncooked spaghetti are also having a better hair day than me. I keep laboring under the misapprehension that I've got flowy, messy-gorgeous hair that needs only be run through with my fingers to look full and volumuptuous. I will post a digital photo for full effect soon.

NPR story

This story about Eunice Kennedy Shriver's lifelong advocacy for people with special needs is good. I mean, she's a Kennedy so she gets plenty of air time. But still, touching. Especially the parts about her sister and how her children grew up.

all my childhood heroes are being sullied

Our favorite frog, Kermit, just appeared in a Toyota "green" commercial hamming it up with American Idol contestants. It reminds me of Bruce Springsteen's ill-advised campaigning on behalf of John Kerry in 2004. When he clasped Kerry's hand and held it up in the air, I turned off the television.

A blessed half hour of television

Just went to my mom's home for a half-hour respite. Been having neck and shoulder issues and I desperately needed to lie down and breathe deeply. While doing so, I watched a PBS show about the adventures of a near-adolescent aardvark named Arthur and his friends Buster, his bratty sister DW and an assortment of other mammalian friends. I am beginning to realize this is hands-down my FAVORITE SHOW ON TELEVISION. It's like tea time, or like smoking a bowl, or like a deep-tissue massage. It's so relaxing. Really. I so-not-facetiously recommend it to anyone seeking some gentle, uplifting television after a hard day. Or during one. It is nicely written and morally edifying. Again, no sarcasm here. Give it a whirl.

The "law" in "flaw"

I got to hear a Supreme Court justice talk last week. It was pretty cool. He talked about many interesting things. Past cases, the role of the court in a democracy, the role of the press in covering the court. Why, despite some necessary mystery, the Supreme Court ought to be understood and questioned and open to the public.
But what was most interesting to hear wasn't what was said. It was how it was said. His way of thinking, sorting, balancing every thought with a counter-thought or variation on the original. Dilineating good from bad, then switching them up on you like a bored magician. Like all good, noncommittal lawyers, he is accustomed to thinking vertically, getting deep into issues rather than scraping meekly over top of them with a broken plastic fork like the rest of us. This type of thinking leaves one full, but not necessarily satisfied. Still, it was all very impressive.
Of course, the balding bench jockey has the luxury and mandate to think in such terms. His institution is one that, if democracy serves, sets the boundaries of what's permissible in a free society. He and his fellow robed wizards are tasked with taking and defending sides using precedents, hypotheticals, common sense and a choice of myriad Constitution-interpreting philosophies in order to reach a conclusion that is invariably angsty and unsatisfying, using a degree of intellectual elbow grease so indulgent, if his job weren't so hard and important, I'd say it's narcissism in need of some quaaludes.
Unfortunately, the rest of us don't have the luxury of masturbating for hours and days with any given political and social issue that comes before us. (In that vein, you might consider my blog a dirty whore. A two-bit trick. A dimestore pimp. CNN.)
We don't have law-brilliant (different than actual brilliant, I think) clerks handing us 200-page briefs about pre-emptive war, hanging chads, or extrajudicial detentions, briefs that some might consider a lifetime achievement.
I, for one, prefer boxers.
We've got to make do with headlines and analysis by average shmos, and some above-average shmos, as well as a dizzying rain of pictures and radio waves that more beat down than enlighten.
While watching his somehow cherubic jowels move, I felt keenly this gap in how he gets to think and interact with issues versus how I get to. I admit I was jealous. I wanted to go immediately to the nearest bookstore and purchase an LSAT book. I desperately wished to be able to sit and ponder issues and solutions and swim in the synapses of the great legal minds of yore. I'd rather come up with opinions after weeks, months, even years!?! of labor, rather than read a few headlines, proclaim something using the words "fuck" and "ludicrous," and then eat my bagel with tomato, onion, lettuce and cream cheese, and type a few uninspiring words while secretly harboring the fear that I could be completely and utterly mistaken.
Yep. I'd rather. But I can't. I'd rather be Shakira for a day. I'd rather be dancing with a ripped merchant marine named Sid. I'd rather have 51 percent ownership of the Baltimore Orioles. I'd rather buy my mom a house in her hometown. The list is real, my friends. Sadly, "rathers" are not.
So I stick with the simple things. Many of these simple things I find in numbers six through 8 of the Big Ten. In the so-called ethic of reciprocity, interest-free. Inside the wordy declarations of Europeans. Among portions and intentions and haughty assertions of certain manifestos and headlines of thoughtful publications. And in remembering little things my dad told me. Like when I tried not to pay a parking ticket. "Do the right thing," he said, well before Spike Lee came along.
It's what most of us have to do. It is through these simple lenses that we have to see the world. It's not that we don't want to acknowledge nuance, relish working through contradictions and admissions of wrong or see the value in letting ideas evolve and be shaped by reality. It's just that, very often, we don't have the time or, given the oppressive nature of information these days, the inclination for much else.

story

Really well done.

It's time to stop using the term "make love"

It's time to stop using the term "make love" in public. Or in private, for that matter. It's blarghfh. It's inaccurate. It's painful.
I had just that misfortune while watching Anderson Cooper on a 60 Minutes piece about Simon Cowell. (Why Cooper is on 60 Minutes warrants a whole other story. Why Cowell is on 60 minutes deserves solemn acknowledgement that we are all doomed.)
Anyway, during the interview, Cooper used the term "make love." And it made me want to stab myself in the ears. It ought to be banished from the vernacular. It doesn't even accurately describe what's being made. I posit that, often, neither "love" nor its spare are made. The term is a relic, codified by our inability to be forthright and candid, reflecting our continued immaturity about the subject.
I understand that, for some people at least, "sex" is too naked a term. And "fuck" isn't exactly family-friendly. But between those two - and creative terms made up on an individual basis, or in rap and rock lyrics - we're covered. Let us, my friends, lay waste to this idiotic expression. Thank you. Goodnight.

Books and bombs

A touching tribute to an Iraqi bookseller killed this week by a car bomb. It's written like a dirge, mourning not only a man, but a city.

And another about Bush and his calls for social justice in Guatemala.

Porcupine Oddity

Today, I had to look up the meaning of the word "incantation." I vaguely understood it as some kind of chant, or whisper, or blessing but I couldn't get a fix on it even though I've heard it and read it plenty. I still needed a precise definition.
So I pulled it up on the Web and felt dumb when I finally saw its meaning spelled out, because I already knew it. That information was sitting idly somewhere in my brain, but I was unable to call it up.
This has happened several times this week and I'm hoping it's not some kind of premature dementia. That would suck. My gut tells me it's more likely all the television and the computering in my life. I think the endless stream of inane and unimportant information pouring into my brain has no exit and has settled and hindered access to certain parts of it -- like, the smarter parts -- and is slowly wearing it down and dulling my synapses like thick globules of arterial obstruction do to hearts. Symptoms: forgetfulness, inertia, incoherent blog postings, and a flimsy wrist. It is so bad, in fact, that I think of what a 1970s, cocaine-addled David Bowie might sing to me:

...Ground control to Porcupine
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong--
Can you hear me Porcupine?
Can you hear me Porcupine?
Can you hear me Porcupine? Can you ...

Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do

Man, I love Bowie.

Anyhow, this is a public service announcement to you and to an over-Webbed and t.v.'d me to meditate, do yoga, exercise and be mindful or any combination thereof. It will keep at bay the inevitable insanity that comes with our Western generations' irresponsible overexposure to Britney Spearsish stimuli.

Now I am going to watch "The Office."

"For Want of a Dentist"

Lead metro story in today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702116.html

They made dozens of calls trying to find a dentist that took Medicaid. Three different jobs provided no health insurance. Then the Medicaid coverage was lost, probably because paperwork never reached them, probably because the family was so transient.

Which brings us to this: "In spite of efforts to change the system, fewer than one in three children in Maryland's Medicaid program received any dental service at all in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."

Can a lawsuit change the system? Can healthcare providers be required to take Medicaid?

Angelina Jolie, On Darfur

Angelina Jolie, on Darfur

The hipper the people are who do good things, the hipper it becomes to do good things. And as an added bonus, it just plain draws awareness. So, cynicism be damned, I'm totally in favor of celebrity advocacy.

Previously, On "Gilmour Girls"

Rory gets a call from an editor at the New York Times, offering to have coffee with her. She called him a while ago but never expected a call back!! She's really happy about it. She is hoping there might be an opening for her at the Times. But if not, maybe the editor can set her up with leads at other papers!

The Middle East

Our lives are so hopelessly intertwined with it as they are with Central America, Mexico and much of Southeast Asia. And more parts of the world, I suppose, but those are the ones that pop to mind now. So when things like this short, credibly rendered history lesson wind up on the front page, it heartens me. And of course I'm a fan of this particular reporter and how well he translates a completely different world.

Not half bad for a Reagan Republican.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/07/webb/index.html

I like her no matter what you say

Arundhati Roy:

"I think it’s vital to deprofessionalize the public debate on matters that vitally affect the lives of ordinary people. It’s time to snatch our futures back from the “experts.” Time to ask, in ordinary language, the public question and to demand, in ordinary language, the public answer.
…But in stead of an argument, or an explanation, or disputing of facts, one gets insults, invective, legal threats and the Expert’s Anthem: “You’re too emotional. You don’t understand and it’s too complicated to explain.” The subtext, of course, is “Don’t worry your little head about it. Go and play with your toys. Leave the real world to us.”
It’s the old Brahminical instinct. Colonize knowledge, build four walls around it, and use it to your advantage."
--Roy, at the Third Annual Eqbal Ahmad Lecture, Feb. 15, 2001, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, from “Power Politics”

I have to say that being a desi in England is kind of ho hum. South Asians are everywhere so I don't feel special. In America at least they pay attention. "Holy Cow!" they say when I walk into a room. "Curry!" they whisper and wink, as I pass by.
"Your people wear such gaudy costumes!" they explain, concerned.
It's just not the same here in London.
Just kidding. I'm writing crap.
Seriously, London's a cool city, I dig. Lots to do and see, a ridonkulous mix of people that paint the picture of their it's-tuesday!-let's-dabble-with-this-country! history.
May I mention again that British men dress with the vigilance of aging socialites? They do great hair, gelled messily but perfectly messily, if you know what I mean. And they wear tighter pants than American men and are awfully pretty to look at while sitting on the Tube.
In the short time I've been here I've found myself adopting little British turns of phrase and not wanting to pronounce the "r" in words like "percent." Which makes me wonder about the implications of the brain's tendency to adopt -- so quickly -- what's around it, which also makes me wonder about the definitions of good and evil, what it really means to be Republican or Democrat or happy or sad or crazy or sane or to like one music over the other. It mostly makes me wonder whether Truth exists at all.
I've gotta get me back to family. I'm scared about my flight home, and we can all only hope that this phobia goes to hell because I'm sick of it.

So I am flying on an airplane tonight. I am scared because I have a phobia. But also: metal winged chariots of death hurtling through interminable space? Not totally irrational to be scared.

I am reading The Inheritance of Loss and Midnight's Children for the occasion. Both by desi writers. I also am reading "Walden" (still). Aren't I so cool, hip and above it all?
I'm going to London to visit an adored cousin. She's got the kind of personality I could only wish for: solicitous, warm, good-natured, patient.
In other news, I'm still as afraid as I was in Sentence No. 1.

Finally, tonight is the president's SOTU. Which scares me in a much more fundamental way.

So this knocked me out when I first read it in college. (hey. why didn't I read this until college?) And when it was presented to me recently, it knocked me the hell out again. I present it to you, my wacky agglomeration of readers, if you care. It's Martin Luther King, Jr's letter from a Birmingham jail.
Glib television mentions, and forced tributes aside, he was a phenom.

In other news, a sublime moment on the Golden Globes yesterday when Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who won for "Babel," took the time before accepting his award to turn and assure Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that he was in the country legally.
"I swear I have my papers in order, governor, I swear," Gonzalez reportedly said, prior to his speech.
Arnold smiled, but I'd like to think it made his irresponsibly veiny neck tighten in discomfort. Dickhead. Anyways, when it makes it's way onto YouTube, it'll be worth the trouble of posting. These are somewhat meaningless moments, but joyful nonetheless.

In other news, I need a new transitional phrase. Help me out writers.

And a hearty welcome back to your new home for hi jinx, profanity and morbid life commentary! It's been a crazy ride and one I'll never share the details of. This is going to have to be a bit of a do-over until I transfer my old postings here, so bear with me.

And while I've got your attention let me point you to the header of a frightening press release I just received:

"Please find attached below a press release on a universal smart card that will be issued to 5,000 firefighters and police officers in Maryland with funds provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security."

I think it was Our Lord, wasn't it, who remarked, "And the ones with the universal smart cards shall inherit the earth..."?

So I'm guessing this might seem innocuous. But really, how can these not evolve into "Get Out of Jail Free In All 50 States After I Fuck You Up" cards? Carte blanches, as those wacky French say. These universal smart cards, aka, "Us Not Them" cards are gonna be valuable someday. So readers, particularly the ones who are in the "Them" rather than the "Us" category: I suggest you find your nearest firefighter or police officer and make nice forthwith, if you haven't already. That card is going to carry a lotta weight when we become -- officially, at least -- a police state. Hunker down and be on the right team.